Happy Campers

Yesterday afternoon when I opened the pantry door, I could still detect the aroma of campfire smoke on the leftover food we brought home from our overnight camping trip. I love it!

We had plans to camp out the week prior, but unfortunately most of us came down with a 24-hour bug the day we were planning on leaving. Lucky for us, Darius had a window in his work schedule and we were able to make up for it.

Tuesday we headed up to Pineview Reservoir, 10 miles east of Ogden, to the Anderson Cove Campground. Darius had been to the reservoir and campground a couple weeks prior with the boys and was looking forward to a return trip to try out the campground and of course do some fishing.

We were fortunate to get an awesome site with lots of shade, so despite the hot day, we were comfortable. Our site was right next to the reservoir, and we had a very short walk down to the water's edge. After setting up camp and relaxing for a bit, we headed down to the water. Darius got his poles in the water, and the boys promptly started their work at scaring the fish away by launching handfuls of rocks in the water. Typical boy behavior.

There were several nicer beach type areas around the reservoir, but we were content to have a spot to ourselves. The boys and I found some trash to pick up along the shore, hunted for cool rocks, and they sat in the water and dug in the sand.

We left Darius to fish a while longer and headed back up to our site to get dinner started. I got a nice fire going and definitely should have waited for it to burn down some before lowering the grate. The wind shifted on me, and now the eyelashes on my left eye are a little shorter than on my right! Lucky for me that was the worst of it.

The boys were excited to roast their hot dogs for all of the minute that they had the patience to hold their roasting sticks, and promptly declared that they wouldn't eat their dogs because they had brown on them. Hopefully they'll learn to appreciate the flavor a little bit of charring gives food when they get older. Good thing Darius knows his boys so well and had the presence of mind to pack stuff for sandwiches.

I wish I would have taken the time to research the area a little better before our trip and planned out an evening activity, but Darius was more than content to fish more, and the boys were happy watching a movie before bed, so I kicked up my feet next to the fire and enjoyed my beer and the peace and quiet.

So now that we had the opportunity to try out our gear and figure out what to bring/leave home the next time, we're excited to plan our next camping trip. Our plan will be to research camping spots within a 2-hr drive and hit as many as we can this summer. I'm going to start rating each area we visit. The things I'll take into consideration will include: value, amenities, campground/site conditions, surrounding area & available activities, noise, and location.

We'd rate the Anderson Cove Campground in the upper middle range. It was easy to get to, and we had two options to get there. We ended up coming home a different way than we came due to the closure of the Ogden Canyon. It took us less than an hour each way. The campground itself is right off of the highway, and the area is developed around the reservoir, so it loses some appeal as far as being less remote. We could definitely hear traffic noise, and I think there may have been a flight path overhead too, because I did hear quite a few airplanes.

The campground amenities were decent. There were vault toilets, toilet paper, and running water outside of them. There was a small general store at the entrance that Darius was impressed with. They offered bait (very important to D), ice, firewood, and groceries for prices that he said were very reasonable. Since the campground is right next to the reservoir, there were definitely a lot of water related amenities available such as boating, canoeing, kayaking, water skiing, fishing, and swimming. If we had really sweet water toys...a boat, tubes, canoe :) we'd be coming back here more often.

The campground itself was very clean and well maintained. There was a noticeable presence of campground hosts that drove by regularly and checked with us upon our arrival to make sure our site was clean when we arrived. Our site was awesome and probably the best part of our experience. We stayed in site #78, and it offered lots of shade, plenty of level ground which is always good for tent sleeping, a paved pad equipped with a very large picnic table, a grill for charcoal, a deep fire pit with cooking grate, and plenty of parking. The site was a great size and it didn't feel like we were too close to campers in other sites near us. The value was very good considering what we paid for our stay, $14.

Since I didn't research before our trip, I can't comment on the surrounding area beyond the reservoir, but it was a beautiful area, and I'm sure there were more activities within a reasonable distance from our campground. In another year or so when Darius is able to get a boat, I'm sure this will be a spot we revisit often.

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity...”    ~ John Muir

The Log Book

Last year around the same time, another Canfield 5 visited Coyote Gulch. Dad was part of the mix, and he was disappointed he wasn't with us this year. He asked for us to keep a little log of our trip which we all took turns writing in.

Monday 8/13:

10:15 AM, "I wonder how many times I've been on this road? I love this drive." - Joy on the drive between Thistle and Fairview.

11:00 AM, "Mmmm potato logs." - Clair, stop at Terrel's.

1:33 PM, There's a discussion about gold teeth. Likely it all started because of Dad's gold tooth.

1:37 PM, We may be lost. Where's 4G when you need it? - somewhere in Richfield

1:47 PM, Still lost...looking for the 24 & 12

2:15 PM, Back on track. Stopped at IFA, Joy finds a cowboy hat..yee haw!

3:19 PM, We stop at the Bicknell pickle-pinto bean-buttermilk pie joint. Shocking news, no pie is consumed by our group. Very un-Canfield like. We stretch our legs and take photos. James shares cinnamon bears.

7:47 PM, Turned off 12 towards Dance Hall Rock. Hiked Upper Calf Creek Falls but saw no falls. Lots of rocks are collected on hike.

10:30 PM, Set up tents at Dance Hall Rock. We got our bones shaken on the road. No moon, lots of stars. - Eric

10:30 PM, "MREs are delicious!" - Joy

10:39 PM, Joy bids 39 and is dismayed by Ruth's pass. Walking Stick invades pinochle game, hysteria ensues. - Clair

11:00 PM, Bug death toll....22. - Clair

Site of bug massacre.

Tuesday 8/14:

9:00 AM, Everyone is packed up but me. It's overcast. Boys beat the girls at pinochle. Spider legs is ready to go. Wish us luck. - Bug Smasher

We made it down the crazy steep rock face that should be banned.

6:39 PM, Joy shoots the moon. Time for chow.

7:00 PM Clair discovers he left both his jam for lunches as well as all of his dinner meals in the truck. :(


Wednesday 8/15:

Weird. No snoring. Clair slept in hammock and had yummy Almond Joy-white hot chocolate. Today we are going to walk to the Escalante River.

Joy made James' butt laugh.

Our party camped across from the Bathing Rock.

Sad news, potty house burned down.

Crows defeated 2 days!

Met 1 couple at the "boot arch."

Clair climbed into a questionable potty hole likely used for a dump (TP inside).

Saw a toad with a missing leg. Clair sees a cow skull. Eric sees a dead baby coyote.

Eric dropped new camera in water. :(

Ruth slipped and went "whoosh" into mud and butt chewing bug likely climbs aboard.

Back at camp, bellies full, now playing pinochle. James and Clair win, bugs drive Eric mad.


Thursday 8/16:

Wednesday night was a restless one. Ruth's butt itches, James had toxic gas, Clair hears animal in the bushes, and Eric couldn't find a comfortable position to sleep in. It was much hotter than the previous 2 nights, but we did get to enjoy seeing a few lightning bugs/fireflies.

Sad...trip is over.

What an awesome trip.

 

 

 

 

 

Epic.

 

 

Coyote Gulch

Day 2 of our trip took us to the trail head for our hike into Coyote Gulch. This was only my second time backpacking, the first time being around 20 years ago or so (to the same gulch). I definitely had some concerns about the heat, the weight of my pack, and hiking in a higher elevation. Excitement helped calm what nerves I did have, and the hike in went better than I had expected. We lucked up and had just enough cloud coverage to keep the sun from beating directly on us, and the only sketchy part was the rock wall we had to descend to reach the gulch. It was a tad on the steep side, but James made it less scary by relieving me of my pack on the way down.


Canfields constructing the Canfield Cairn

 

 

By midday we had setup our camp across from the Jacob Hamblin Arch and spent a few hours napping/relaxing. In the afternoon we headed upstream for a leisurely hike and enjoyed having the gulch to ourselves. We spotted 2 crows (who were patiently waiting for us to leave camp so they could raid it), 2 ducks, 2 bucks and lots of lizards and toads.

Looking at the landscape stretched out before us on the hike in, you would never know such a stunning and peaceful place is hidden away just a few miles from the trail head.

 

To have the opportunity to be able to spend a few days alone with 4 of my siblings was pretty special. By the end of the day we had all reconnected in ways that I'm sure none of us had expected we would at the start of our trip.

The Canfield 5

I think it was back in May that Joy told me about her plans with Clair to go on a backpacking trip to Southern Utah in August. I promptly invited myself to join them and spent the last few months anxiously awaiting our trip. Our head count was up to 9 at one time, but in the end we were down to 5: Eric, Clair, Joy, James and I. The Canfield 5.

Brent and Michel were generous and gave us the use of their Suburban for the trip. Early Monday morning our helmsman, Clair, headed south and picked us up at our multiple locations. Our drive took us through Sanpete and we made stops along the way to capture shots and reminisce about the time we spent living there.

 

Continuing south we spent a few extra minutes in Richfield after getting turned around, skirted the edge of Capitol Reef National Park, and continued on to the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (GSENM) where we took our first hike and attempted to find the falls of the Upper Calf Creek Falls (which we unfortunately didn't find) before ending our day at Dance Hall Rock.

 

After we pitched tents and fed our bellies, we sat together on the massive sandstone and played pinochle while assassinating the multitude of bugs our lights attracted. Before we called it a night, we sat in the dark star gazing and watched the tail end of a meteor shower. You forget just how slapped full the sky is of stars until you're in total darkness miles away from everything. Awesome.

When Nature Calls

There may be a day where Ben is embarrassed by naked butt pictures, so I opted to condense these (in my mom opinion) adorable shots to make the deletion process a bit easier if he asks me to take them down when he gets older.

Capitol Reef

The last day of our camping/parks adventure took us to Capitol Reef. We started out at the Visitor Center to pick up a trail guide and spent way too much time perusing the gift shop. We only intended to stay in the park until midday which limited us to one good trail and a few other brief stops on the way out of the park.

Our trail pick was the Grand Wash and out of all the hikes we went on over the past few days it was my favorite. The trail is a gorge which cuts through the upper portion of the Waterpocket Fold. All along the trail there is streambed sediment, so there were lots of interesting rocks which we all enjoyed picking through to find our favorites. The narrow section of the trail closes in to about 15 feet wide while the surronding walls tower hundreds of feet upward. I think Ben's favorite part of the trail were all the smooth holes/caves/craters in the walls. Many of them were the perfect size for him to crawl into.

Our stops on the way out of Capitol Reef took us by a short river walk with views of petroglyphs and to the Goosenecks Overlook. We barely scraped the surface of the park, and this is one place I am anxious to return and spend a few days exploring.

Instead of taking a major highway home, we opted to drive through the county we grew up in. We spent a little extra time driving around Spring City and found a field full of llamas for Joy's viewing pleasure. Our drive took us by our old home which is difficult to look at now. I glanced and winced and it was all I wanted to see. It's sad that the people who bought it aren't as interested in keeping the property as nice as we once did. There are definitely some changes to the area we used to call home, but for the most part things look very similar to the way I remember them. In some ways the detour felt a little uncomfortable, but I'm still glad we took it.

Our super speedy tour of four parks in three days took us over 900 miles around the beautiful state of Utah. There is so much more of this state to explore. I'm super excited for the next adventure!

I really enjoyed the time with Dad, Joy and especially Ben. Joy just finished up with a photography class and she probably took over half the pictures from the trip, so kudos to Joy for some of the awesome shots!